bankiva closely resembles, as
Mr. Blyth and others have noted, the voice of both sexes of the common
domestic fowl; but the last note of the crow of the wild bird is rather
less prolonged. Captain Hutton, well known for his researches into the
natural history of India, informs me that he has seen several crossed fowls
from the wild species and the Chinese bantam; these crossed fowls BRED
FREELY with bantams, but unfortunately were not crossed inter se. Captain
Hutton reared chickens from the eggs of the Gallus bankiva; and these,
though at first very wild, afterwards became so tame that they would crowd
round his feet. He did not succeed in rearing them to maturity; but as he
remarks, "no wild gallinaceous bird thrives well at first on hard grain."
Mr. Blyth also found much difficulty in keeping G. bankiva in confinement.
In the Philippine Islands, however, the natives must succeed better, as
they keep wild cocks to fight with their domestic game-birds. (7/22.
Crawfurd 'Desc. Dict. of Indian Islands' 1856 page 112.) Sir Walter Elliot
informs me that the hen of a native domestic breed of Pegu is
undistinguishable from the hen of the wild G. bankiva; and the natives
constantly catch wild cocks by taking tame cocks to fight with them in the
woods. (7/23. In Burmah, as I hear from Mr. Blyth, the wild and tame
poultry constantly cross together, and irregular transitional forms may be
seen.) Mr. Crawfurd remarks that from etymology it might be argued that the
fowl was first domesticated by the Malays and Javanese. (7/24. Ibid page
113.) It is also a curious fact, of which I have been assured by Mr. Blyth,
that wild specimens of the Gallus bankiva, brought from the countries east
of the Bay of Bengal, are far more easily tamed than those of India; nor is
this an unparalleled fact, for, as Humboldt long ago remarked, the same
species sometimes evinces a more tameable disposition in one country than
in another. If we suppose that the G. bankiva was first tamed in Malaya and
afterwards imported into India, we can understand an observation made to me
by Mr. Blyth, that the domestic fowls of India do not resemble the wild G.
bankiva of India more closely than do those of Europe.]
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